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Lesson 1 (Season 1)
Piano Major Chiaki Shinichi dreams of being a conductor and studying in Europe. But his unexpected meeting with the strange Noda Megumi, also known as "Nodame" opens his eyes to much more than music. Summary Maestro Viera angrily stops his orchestra’s practice session, displeased with the sound, and is informed by a young Shinichi Chiaki that there’s a misprint on the music score. Vienna asks him if he’d like to be the conductor instead, but he’s only joking and takes the young boy outside, telling him not to return. At a later time, Chiaki asks Vienna if he can be his student. Vienna asks what instrument he can play and when Shinichi says “a little piano and violin” he’s again kicked out of the room with a patronizing tone. Up to this point, the title cards are flashing messages about how memories are often embellished over reality. However… The scene shows a worried flight attendant telling passengers to prepare for a rough landing over the sound of turbines. A pill bottle drops off into the distance. Several years later, in the Momogaoka Graduate School of Music, an adult Shinichi looks down on the other music student of his school. From a window, two girls watch him go, one (Reina) playfully mocking his high-and-mighty attitude while the other (Maki) is seeing him for the first time. Reina calls him a skilled pianist like his father but Maki finds him only conceited. In his piano class, Chiaki is flawlessly playing a piece (Beethoven piano concerto No. 5 in G major) while other students are discussing their classmate’s leaving to study abroad. This upsets Chiaki who is then slapped across the face by his teacher, Kouzou Etou, using a comedian’s paper fan (Harisen). Prof. Etou scolds him harshly for ruining Beethoven’s song and asks if he’s trying to ruin his reputation as a teacher. Picking up Chiaki’s dropped book, the teacher finds he has an annotated score and mockingly asks if he intends to become a conductor. Chiaki tell him to shut up and starts calling him out over his teaching style, calling him “Harisen Teacher” and telling him to go back west. Stunned, Prof. Etou calls Chiaki “no good” and leaves, saying he’d been wrong about him. Chiaki mentally agrees that he wants to become a conductor, revealing an old picture of himself as a child beside Maestro Viera. When he was a child, his father took him around the world and saw many European orchestras. It was there he saw the conduction of Sebastiano Viera, a man he greatly admires. As he walks down the hall, he hears a piano playing “Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Pathetique” and though he at first calls it pathetic, he quickly realizes that it’s flawless and wants to find out the musician. He’s stopped by a young woman, Saiko, who demands to know if he was kicked out of Professor Etou’s lessons. They head to a bar and she tells him to apologize to Etou who’s a famous teacher in their university. Shinichi refuses, saying he has no wish to be a pianist anyway, though he refuses to switch majors as he will only accept Viera as his conducting teacher. Annoyed, Saiko tells him to go study abroad and when he flinches, she brings up that he’s afraid of flying on a plane, ignoring his excuse of being traumatized by a crash landing. He also won’t go on a boat as he’s almost drowned in the sea before. Depressed, he considered quitting music since he’ll ever travel abroad and asks if he could apply to a job at her family’s store, Tagaya Music Instruments. She makes a motion to leave and he grabs her hand, asking her to stay with him for the night. Saiko reminds him they aren’t a couple anymore and, disgusted, declares that she hates losers before walking out on him. Later that night, Megumi Noda is walking home, singing Beethoven’s music while adding silly lyrics. As she reaches her apartment door, she finds Shinichi passed out on the walkway, clearly drunk. She recognizes him as “whatever-senpai” and seems intrigued by him. Shinichi dreams of piano music, recognizing the song he heard earlier, and wakes up to finally see the player: Nodame. Though he’s amazed by her skills and how she plays as if singing, he is horrified by the state of her apartment, filled with mounds of garbage and swarming with insects. She sees he’s awake and remembers his name to be “Chiaki-Senpai,” cheerfully asking if he remember what happened last night. Chiaki flees to the outside and sees that her apartment is next door to his own, calling her a strange woman. Once back a school, Chiaki is approached by Nodame, calling out to him about the belt he left at her house. Horrified and embarrassed, he rejects her claim and takes off towards school while the girls from before, friends of Nodame, wonder why she’s with him. Chiaki discovers he’s been reassigned to the class of Hajime Tanioka who is the current instructor to Nodame and seems to encourage her weird and childish personality. Other students remark that Tanioka is the instructor for failing students, called “the delinquent expert” which shocks Chiaki as for how that would make him a delinquent as well. Back at his apartment building, Chiaki is smoking while griping about Japanese weather but as he knows he can’t leave, thinking again about quitting music. A horrible smell gets his attention and when he sees the pools of filth oozing from Nodame’s apartment, he barges inside. She thinks he’s come for his belt but instead, he start furiously cleaning her house, letting her salvage her important things but finally just pushing her aside to get the job done. After clearing out the clutter, he calls himself an idiot for gong mad, but is again amazed while hearing Nodame play Pathetique on her piano, admiring her large hands and how she easily plays difficult parts. He tries to correct a mistake she makes but she can’t figure out what he means. He admires that she plays how she feels, calling her “cantabile”. At school, Prof. Tanioka wants Chiaki and Nodame to play a piece together, Mozart’s Sonata in D major for two pianos and though Chiaki puts up a fight, Tanioka is confident his leadership skills can help them. Neither student knows the piece and when Nodame makes a mistake it the first few measures, Chiaki short-temperedly throw a music book at her. The second attempt isn’t good either and he learns Nodame doesn’t usually read her music sheets since she memorizes songs by listening to them. That night, he once again forces himself into Nodame’s house and is shocked that she’s already turning it into a mess with piles of junk. Regardless, he tells her they’re going practice and that she’ll have to memorize it by what he plays for her. Their session continues into the next school day as he tries to correct both her music and the funny face that she makes while she plays. She’s slowly improving but something is still not quite right. After he has another cleaning attack and ends up washing her hair for her, feeling like a dog groomer, he realizes how strange a person she is. The next day, however, he kindly tells her to just play the piece as she wants to and, now more at ese, is glad to hear how well she can do while he works to keep pace with her skills. He recalls how his parents’ divorce forced him to return to Japan with his mother and before leaving, he declared to Viera that he would become a conductor someday, begging to be made his student. Viera informed the boy that he was already his pupil and he would wait for his return. In present day, Chiaki finds Nodame’s music has given him a new inspiration and while Prof. Tanioka congratulates the performance, Chiaki realizes it was he that was being taught from the experience. As he walks back home, not happy about this situation, Nodame declares that she’s suddenly falling in love with him and, terrified, he tries to deny that’s what she’s feeling. Featured Music *Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso *Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" from Symphony No.7 **Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" **"Adagio cantabile" from Piano Sonata No. 8 *Mozart: Sonata for Two Pianos in D major